U.S. BETS ON BORDER FORCES TO STOP MEXICO DRUG FLOW

By Anthony Boadle

WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) The U.S. government is banking on border task
forces to be set up with Mexico by the end of this year to reverse its poor
results in the war on drug traffickers, counternarcotics officials said on
Wednesday.

But they said many details, particularly the key issue of whether U.S.
agents will be allowed to carry guns and use them on the Mexican side of
the border, must still be ironed out.

The antidrug officials said the violence and corruption spawned by the
Mexican drug cartels had reached unprecedented levels on both sides of the
frontier, and cries of victory over the Ciudad Juarez cartel after the
death of its leader, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, had been premature.

The new binational strategy involves the creation of three Border Task
Forces, most probably in Tijuana, El Paso and Reinosa, though officials
were cagey about the exact locations.

``We will have the beginning of decent binational task forces by the end of
this month,'' said White House antidrug policy chief Barry McCaffrey.

``Both sides are going to use offset locations,'' he told reporters. ``We
do not want criminal organizations to understand precisely how we are
organizing or what the manpower will be.''

McCaffrey said the Mexican government has been rebuilding its counter
narcotics force and screening every agent since the embarrassing arrest of
antidrug czar Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo in February for being in the pay of
drug barons.

The U.S. government is again sharing intelligence with Mexican agencies, he
said after a meeting with 400 U.S. drug enforcement and prevention officers.

U.S. officials estimate up to 70 percent of the illegal drugs used in the
United States enter the country across the southwest border with Mexico,
mainly cocaine and marijuana, but also increasing quantities of heroin and
methamphetamines.

McCaffrey said drug violence has also spilled over the border and U.S. law
enforcement, customs and border patrol officers are subject to daily
assaults, including some with automatic weapons.

U.S. drug enforcement officers say the ability to carry weapons on their
crossborder missions is crucial, but Mexican authorities face nationalist
opposition to allowing armed U.S. agents into the country.

``The Mexican government has agreed in principle, but this is still under
negotiation,'' said former El Paso Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
chief Travis Kuykendall.

The veteran officer, who once headed the DEA office in Monterrey, said the
new border task forces will operate under a completely different concept.
U.S. and Mexican agents were to be working side by side with high level
political backing and consular immunity.

``It will be a much more formal agreement and hopefully more permanent and
more successful,'' he told Reuters.

But the two governments must work out details on weapons, rules of
engagement, the number of agents involved and whether they will be allowed
to investigate, handle informants and be present at arrests and drug
seizures across the border.

Since 1978, U.S. agents have been barred by Mexico from taking part in
arrests or seizures. The rules were further tightened after the 1985
killing of DEA agent Enrique Camarena, who was kidnapped, tortured and
killed in Guadalajara.

Kuykendall said random assassinations had increased to ``unbelievable''
levels in Ciudad Juarez, where the DEA will open a threeman office next
year despite concern for their safety.

He said the cartel founded by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who died in July
after radical plastic surgery to change his looks, was being run by his
brother and and the former boss's son.

``We see no shortage of drugs,'' Kuykendall said. ``We believe the
organization is intact and still operating.''